Indonesia Pledges New Forests for Orangutan Haven

80 percent of orangutans live in Indonesia, which now has offered the species more another safe haven there. Government officials agreed to reserve 332 square miles of forest (86,000 hectares) on Borneo island for some 200 captive orangutans waiting to be released into the wild.

Forestry ministry officials in Jakarta have okayed a permit submitted by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation to refurbish the forested land, formerly used for logging, and release the endangered great apes by 2015.

At an international meeting on orangutan conservation in Bali on Thursday, the government announced its decision calling it a win-win-win for great apes, forest biodiversity, and the battle against climate change, referring to thevast tracts of Indonesian jungle that have been cleared for plantations and logging.